Active matter theories naturally describe the mechanics of living systems. As biological matter is overwhelmingly chiral, an understanding of the implications of chirality for the mechanics and statistical mechanics of active materials is a priority. This article examines active, chiral materials from a liquid-crystal physicist's point of view, extracting general features of broken-symmetry-ordered phases of such systems without reference to microscopic details. Crucially, this demonstrates that activity allows chirality to affect the hydrodynamics of broken-symmetry phases in contrast to passive liquid crystals, in which chirality induces the formation of a range of spatially periodic structures whose large-scale mechanics have no signatures of broken parity symmetry. In active systems, chirality leads to the formation of phases that break time translation symmetry, which is impossible in equilibrium, and the existence of new kinds of elastic force densities in translation symmetry-broken states.

中文翻译：

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活性揭示了液晶物质中的手性


活性物质理论自然描述了生命系统的机制。由于生物物质绝大多数是手性的，因此了解手性对活性材料的力学和统计力学的影响是当务之急。本文从液晶物理学家的角度研究了活性手性材料，提取了此类系统的打破对称有序相的一般特征，而无需参考微观细节。至关重要的是，这表明与被动液晶相反，活性允许手性影响破对称相的流体动力学，其中手性诱导形成一系列空间周期性结构，这些结构的大规模力学没有破奇偶对称性的特征。在有源系统中，手性导致形成打破时间平移对称性的相，这在平衡中是不可能的，并且在平移对称性破坏状态下存在新型弹性力密度。